You do not need any special skills, the equipment will do most of the work. All that is needed is someone to make sure
the speaker is always in the picture (ie. moving the camera on the tripod), zoom in/out with the remote control and change tapes between the lectures.

Ideally, we would have you operate the camera for talks you want to see anyway. The shifts are from 09.30 – 12.45 hours,
and from 14.00 – 17.15 hours.
If you are interested in helping out with this, please email the list (guadec-list@gnome.org) or find Philip Withnall or
Koen Martens on the event venue. If there are talks you absolutely want to see, let us know the time and room as well
so we can schedule you in the proper slot if possible.

Thanks in advance for your help!

gmc@monk:~$ scanimage -L
device `hpaio:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP?ip=10.1.2.4' is a Hewlett-Packard HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP all-in-one

But scanning failed:

gmc@monk:~$ scanimage
scanimage: open of device hpaio:/net/HP_Color_LaserJet_CM1312nfi_MFP?ip=10.1.2.4 failed: Error during device I/O

So, after googling around, trying a thousand-and-one proposed solutions that worked for other people, I tried a few debug options. What led me to the answer was this invocation:

SANE_DEBUG_HPAIO=8 xsane

This reported it could not load a restricted library named /usr/share/hplip/scan/plugins/bb_soapht.so, which indeed did not exist. The answer: run hp-plugin as root, let it install a bunch of super-evil proprietary files from HP (yes, you need to sign in blood, sell your soul, all that), and behold: scanning works!

Of course, this is documented nowhere. Well, it is now. Hope this helps some other poor victim of the gpl-jihadists that are the debian developers :)

Designers wanted! For both shirts and swag, we need people with a keen eye for visual design who can help out. Let us know ASAP = before June 16th. We need to order the goods after that date.

Reinout van Schouwen has stepped up to coordinate the t-shirts (free for €75-level registrees and up!) and merchandise that will be sold at the event. The deadline for getting the main design polished is July 1st, giving us 4 weeks to come up with an event design, a staff/volunteer version, and a version to print onto merchandise.

Gaël Hernandez has taken on the “other swag” project. He is looking for input on the cool kinds of conference stuff that people like, so please drop him a note if you want something besides the typical “conference squeeze ball”. (Personal suggestion: GUADEC superhero toys!!)

All profits from sales will go directly the GNOME foundation, who will continue sponsoring travel grants for participants.

Program Schedule

The program committee has published the first version of the schedule! You can find it on the GUADEC 2010 Program site [http://www.guadec.org/index.php/guadec/2010/schedConf/program]. We have three rooms: one big plenary room and two smaller break-out rooms.

We will need lots of heralds to help out at the event: People who can focus audience attention to the stage, introduce the speakers, keep an eye on the clock and generally make sure things run smooth. Contact me if you want to help out!

Soccer match

Mario Gonzalez reminds us that a little physical activity is a good thing! He has proposed to continue the yearly GUADEC soccer match, a competition with its roots in the famous Torvalds vs. Gates match: Bill owned the soccer ball but Linus still won. (Joking).

The local team is currently searching for a suitable field. If you are a player and want to join the game, let Mario know!

Registration

Registration! It’s open! For everyone!

After quite a long build-up (do you have any idea how long I’ve been planning?), I am really happy to announce that, finally: Registration. Is. Open! Check it out on the official register page: https://register.guadec.org/

We want everyone to come, so don’t feel shy! The more the merrier, but don’t forget – free swag for EUR 75-level and up!

Registering does a lot of things, besides just helping to fund more travel grants.
- First, we need you to do it; keeping track of everyone allows us to plan the venue, food, swag and facilities;
- Secondly, the municipality of The Hague has promised a financial contribution towards GUADEC depending on the number of attendees;
- Lastly all registrees get to breeze into the conference, because we give them a PDF-ticket. Registering at the door? Be prepared to wait in line.

Registration closes on July 5th. So come visit, Holland is beautiful in July!

Contact

Everyone mentioned here and everyone helping out is on the GUADEC mailing list. The easiest way to reach us all is with an email calling us by name!

Really, we’d love to hear from you -  guadec-list@gnome.org

– KOEN

1. VVD – 38 zetels (9783 followers)
2. D66 – 32 zetels (8067 followers)
3. PvdA – 21 zetels (5519 followers)
4. GroenLinks – 20 zetels (5172 followers)
5. CDA – 10 zetels (2630 followers)
6. SP – 9 zetels (2423 followers)
7. PP – 6 zetels (1658 followers)
8. CU – 5 zetels (1294 followers)
9. PvdD – 3 zetels (889 followers)
10. TON – 2 zetels (671 followers)
11. Lijst 17 – 2 zetels (552 followers)
12. Partij een – 1 zetel (378 followers)
13. PVV – 1 zetel (361 followers)
14. NN – 0 zetels (92 followers)
15. MenS – 0 zetels (0 followers)
16. SGP – 0 zetels (0 followers)

Ik heb me gebaseerd op de kieslijsten voor mijn eigen gemeente, Den Haag. Lijst 11 en lijst 15 bestaan hier niet, van MenS en SGP kon ik zo gauw geen twitterprofiel vinden (die eerste, MenS, noemt wel een profiel op hun site, maar dit bestaat niet). De kiesdeler is 263.26, en de restzetels (7 stuks) zijn op basis van ‘het systeem van de grootste gemiddelden‘ toegewezen aan CDA, PvdA, VVD, GroenLinks, CU en D66 (2).

*EDIT*: restzetels opnieuw verdeelt volgens http://www.kiesraad.nl/nl/Onderwerpen/Uitslagen/Toewijzing_zetels.html

Interpretatie

De VVD is, net als in de peilingen, de grootste partij. Maar waar de peilingen CDA en PvdA op nummers 2 en 3 zetten (al dan niet in omgekeerde volgorde), zakt het CDA op twitter af naar een zesde plaats. Opvallend is de grote winst van D66 en GroenLinks, blijkbaar hebben deze partijen de aansluiting met de netwerkgeneratie goed weten te vinden. De SP, in de kamer toch vaak pleitbezorger van digitale burgerrechten en open source / open standaarden, blijft achter op twitter met een relatief klein aantal followers.

Op zich verrassend dat een partij die in de peilingen in de marge zit en niet eens boven de kiesdeler uitkomt, de Nederlandse piratenpartij, toch redelijk hoog eindigt. Op zich niet zo vreemd natuurlijk, hun achterban is bij uitstek de tech-savy twitter-junk. Toch blijven ze achter bij de partijen waar ze zich hard tegen afzetten. Een andere partij die we in de marge vinden is Lijst 17, deze partij haalt in dit lijstje toch nog 2 zetels. De PVV, in de peilingen een grote partij, eindigt bedroevend laag met 1 zetel.

Coalities

Wat betekent dit voor mogelijke coalities? Hoewel de VVD de grootste is, is het voor deze partij onmogelijk om over rechts een coalitie te vormen. Samen met het buigzame D66 halen ze nipt geen meerderheid, 70 zetels. Daar zou samen met bijvoorbeeld CDA een meerderheid kunnen vormen, maar of dat realistisch is?

Kijken we naar de twee opeenvolgende grootste partijen, D66 en PvdA, dan zitten we op 53 zetels. Niet genoeg dus, maar samen met de SP en GL halen ze een coalitie van 82 zetels. Ook niet erg waarschijnlijk. Eigenlijk zitten er weinig vruchtbare coalitie-mogelijkheden in, als ik dat zo snel even bekijk. Wat dat betreft wijkt de internet-realiteit dus niet veel af van die van de oude media.

Vervolg

Het zou op zich leuk zijn om hetzelfde te doen, maar dan op basis van het aantal followers dat de lijsttrekker van elk der partijen heeft, of op basis van het totaal van followers van alle kandidaten per lijst. Dat is met toch even teveel uitzoekwerk voor een brainfart, maar als iemand er zin in heeft hoor ik graag wat de uitkomst is!

Wellicht dat ik ergens in een verloren moment (ze zijn redelijk schaars) het e.e.a. nog kan automatiseren, zodat een dagelijkse update gemaakt kan worden.

Maar ach, het blijft spielerij. Het is leuk om te zien welke partijen het op internet goed doen, maar ook niet meer dan dat. De echte uitslag weten we pas op 10 juni, en zal naar alle waarschijnlijkheid flink afwijken van mijn lijstje.

Get Linux wings!

The GNOME Developer Training sessions at GUADEC are designed to give
experienced software developers the tools that they need to get the most out
of developing free software in an open community.

This two-day course includes a hands-on practical session and a detailed
social overview of community development. You'll learn how to get your work
upstream and how to influence the direction of upstream projects.

Covering common Linux development tools, the GNOME and FreeDesktop.org
development platform and the social dynamics of contributing to community
projects, this course will put extra tools into your developer's toolbox.

Attendance packages for the developer training sessions also include a full
€250 professional-level pass to GUADEC. The flagship annual GNOME-project
conference, GUADEC is three days of presentations, BOFs and tutorials. To
ensure the highest quality of participant experience, space is strictly
limited. The GUADEC coordination team encourages everyone interested to
register early to guarantee availability.

Pricing:
Includes delivery of printed training material related to the course, and
meals and refreshments during training days.
* 2 days training course + professional registration for GUADEC 2010 (a €250
value): €1500
* Early bird price (for registrations before June 1st 2010): €1200

You can register for the course at www.guadec.org.
The course is composed of four half-day modules, covering the following
syllabus:

Developer tools and development environments:
* Source control - git, svn, bzr
* Using autotools
* Standard GNOME build dependencies & their purposes (pkgconfig, intltool,
gtk-doc)
* Cross-compilation environments (Scratchbox, OpenEmbedded)
* Debugger (gdb, Nemiver)
* Valgrind (including memcheck, Massif, kcachegrind, Callgrind)
* Other developer tools: sar, sysprof, bootchart

The GNOME platform:
* glib and GObject
* GTK+ and Clutter
* Using Glade and GtkBuilder
* DBus, DFeet, registering and calling DBus APIs
* GConf
* GStreamer
* Telepathy
* Language bindings - C++, Java, C#, Python, Vala

A Hands-on Practical Workshop:
* Set up a GNOME development environment
* Write a complete GNOME application in Python
* Integrate with the GNOME desktop

Community development
* Community communication forums (mailing lists, forums, IRC, Bugzilla,
source control)
* Effective community participation, community social norms
* Project governance - how things get done
* Getting changes upstream
* Getting to maintainer - how to make friends and influence people
* Building a vibrant community

Training will be coordinated by Neary Consulting on behalf of the GNOME
Foundation.

Register today! www.guadec.org 
---

Sometimes, I hear people talking about ‘the news’. Stuff that happens miles and miles away. I remember the days I used to care about all the injustice in the world. The troubled days, I must add. It was such a burden. Today, I hear something about a revolution here, an oil-spill there, but it has no meaning anymore. I can let it pass without getting worked up over it. As long as there is no oil on my doorstep, how does it influence me?

Even though I live next door to the Dutch parliament, the political arena is reduced to a virtual reality. An amusement show that has no bearing on my self. No matter what they do, what they decide, I will always be me. Wilders, a demon to some, a saviour to others, is merely a clown on the stage of this comedy. He does not bother me. Is not real.

It may come across as a little ego-centric, to say the least. But stop and think, the reverse is actually true! Who am I to think that all those far-away injustices concern me. Who am I to think I have anything to do with it, that I somehow have a role in bringing about, changing or correcting those circumstances. How ego-centric is that??

The important news will come to me anyway, through the people I know. The real world that surrounds me. And then I will be able to act, to change reality. That which I cannot change is not a part of my reality. And that which I change, is my reality. Always and constantly.

I perceive, I act, I change.

I have no past, no future, just the here and now.

Now I admit, reading through the almost 40 pages of legalese is not for everyone. Luckily, the EFF (the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a long-standing fighter for your rights online) has written an excellent summary on the document. I recommend reading that if you don’t want to read the actual document itself. There is also a nice Dutch summary written by BOF (Bits of Freedom, sort of the national counterpart of the EFF). Both list four reasons why ACTA is dangerous:

• Intermediate parties, the internet providers, will be made to enforce the agreement by filtering internet traffic relating to file-sharing;
• Disconnection from the internet in case of alleged infringement of copyright, you as an internet user can be disconnected by your ISP if there is an accusation of infringement, no trial, no judge, just gone from the net;
• Criminalization of non-commercial use, severe penalties for mere citizens such as you and I that up until now were reserved for criminals who are willfully and for profit mass-producing illegal copies of, for example, movie DVD’s;
• Seizing of computers and other equipment in the case of alleged copyright infringement, in other words: the police can come and take your computer (and destroy it) if you use file-sharing technology, irrespective of whether you are sharing copyrighted material or not.

Several organisations so far have jumped on the ‘Stop ACTA’ bandwagon, and a simple search on ’stop ACTA’ on a search engine of your choice will get you a whole lot of sites that are somehow trying to counter this agreement. You can sign several petitions, and you should. But in the end, a petition is just a single number, and does not impress the average member of the European parliament that much. What impresses them most: personal letters, emails or even phone calls, where citizens of their constitucy explain why they believe ACTA is not a Good Thing.

So I hereby call everyone to arms: write your members of parliament! Tell them, in your own words, why you think ACTA should not become law in Europe. The site of the European parliament can give you a list of the members that represent your country, and their contact details. Of course, you can write to all members of the EP. But, in general, members of the parliament represent the people from their own country and are therefore more likely to listen to input from their country. On the other hand, you do not have to restrict yourself to those members of parliament that are aligned with your own political preferences.

Try to make your letter personal! Don’t just copy and paste one of the many example texts that are all over the web. Rather, use them as inspiration. A thousand different emails make a bigger impression than ten-thousand copies of the same letter. You do not have to write high-quality prose ready for publiction in the papers, so even if you think yourself a bad writer I am sure you can come up with a sentence or two saying you do not want ACTA in your life.

Some members of parliament will respond to your letter, perhaps explaining why they think ACTA is a good thing, or why they agree with you that it is not. Some might not even reply, and yet in other cases you will hear from an assistant to the member of parliament. Don’t be discouraged by that. Voicing your opinion is important, and even if you do not get to speak to the member of parliament in person, your input will be passed on and considered when time comes to vote.

Act now! Stop ACTA! Write to your members of parliament!

Of course, you will need DejaVuSans.ttf somewhere php can find it. It only works for numeric attributes, and shows the distribution of values across the entire range in a pic like this:

<?php

$histo = array(3,1093532,2500008,3347370,3773220,4329046,4892919,5390692,5395070,5399958,5410010,6070732,6083634,6099913,6130248,6178513,6247523,6343449,6453638,6623753,6768751,7397769,8399216,9846065,10544718,11031060,11860674,12419158,13316261,13381469,13542198,13612939,13691688,14129002,14521475,15031702,15757599,16379081,16911263,17373535,17867201,18334590,19029738,19540986,20134883,20960943,21533740,22135095,22891305,23693757,24404628,24998347,25322610,25876449,26639871,27120442,27879107,28377881,28902544,29184971,29500076,29905742,30211641,30862716,31463170,32303386,32700442,33280207,34106019,34652112,35375896,36329008,36898304,37775921,38786805,39217310,39422963,39595039,39820321,39985192,40201842,40307867,40386696,40473160,40549746,40630896,40707828,40782292,41002531,41239758,41536689,41770244,41939655,42117194,42315945,42507594,42678925,42870015,43041425,43244698,43415095);

$min=$histo[0];
$max=$histo[count($histo)-1];

print "min $min, max $max\n";
print "number ".count($histo)."\n";

$im     = imagecreate(1044,200);

$black  = imagecolorallocate($im,0,0,0);
$white  = imagecolorallocate($im,255,255,255);

imagefill($im,0,0,$white);

imageline($im,10,49,1033,49,$black);

$step = ($max-$min)/1023;

$counter=0;

$lastx=-10000;

foreach($histo as $val) {
  $x=($val-$min)/$step;

 print "$x\n";
  imageline($im,$x+10,40,$x+10,58,$black);

  if($x+5>$lastx+10) {
    imagettftext($im,10,-90,$x+5,60,$black,"./DejaVuSans.ttf","$val");
    $lastx=$x+5;
  }
  $counter++;
}

imagepng($im,'line.png');

?>

Maar helaas werd ik onaangenaam verrast: de lijsttrekker, Samir Allioui, bezigt vrolijk woorden als ‘Gore morralfaggots’ (1), en vindt dat nog eens de normaalste zaak van de wereld. Dat heeft niets met homo-onvriendelijkheid te maken, aldus de lijsttrekker van de partij. Om zijn uitspraak te duiden verwijst hij naar een obscure site, vooral in trek bij een kleine sub-cultuur van internet-geeks en nerds. De pagina die volgens hem uitlegt dat het niets met homofobisch gedrag te maken heeft staat echter bomvol homofoob materiaal. Van het niveau van pubers, die elkaar voor ‘homo’ uitschelden als ze iemand willen beledigen.

Waarom heb ik er eigenlijk zo’n probleem mee?? Schelden doet toch geen pijn?? Wie daar zo over denkt, beseft niet wat het is om erachter te komen dat je homo bent in een homo-intolerante maatschappij. Veel jongeren die homo zijn, durven er niet voor uit te komen. Want homo is toch een scheldwoord? Dit hakt er bij sommigen zo hard in, dat ze uiteindelijk maar zelfmoord plegen. Want ze deugen immers niet. Zijn ‘verkeerd’.

Roepen dat de opmerking uit context is gehaald, en verwijzen naar een obscure pagina, dat is volgens mij niet het juiste antwoord op de kritiek. Die site doet het misschien goed bij nerds (overigens ben ik zelf ook een behoorlijke nerd), maar voor ‘de buitenwacht’ versterkt deze uitleg alleen maar het beeld dat de lijsttrekker een homofoob is. Los van het feit of dat beeld nu klopt of niet. Dat Allioui dat niet in ziet is een veeg teken; is dit wel de juiste man om de piratenpartij naar een overwinning te leiden?

Ik vind de woorden van Allioui zeer kwalijk, en dat de lijsttrekker van de piratenpartij niet beseft dat zijn uitspraak simpelweg beledigend is en een homo-intolerant spraakgebruik in stand houdt, baart me zorgen. Ik moet er niet aan denken dat deze figuur daadwerkelijk in de tweede kamer komt om de idealen waar ik ook achter sta te op deze incompetente wijze te verdedigen! Mochten ze een zetel halen, dan komt hij er zeker niet meer mee weg om te jammeren ‘maar mijn uitspraak is uit de context gequote‘.

Ik hoop echt dat deze partij zijn zaakjes op orde krijgt, maar ik heb er een hard hoofd in. Ik zal hier niet ingaan op andere recente incidenten, laat ik volstaan met de constatering dat ik het vertrouwen in de Nederlandse afdeling van de piratenpartij kwijt ben. Mijn steunverklaring kan ik niet meer intrekken, maar verder zullen ze het zonder mij moeten doen. Maar ach, ik zal na bovenstaande tekst ook wel bestempeld worden als ‘morralfaggot’, dus echt wakker zullen ze er niet van liggen.

1) De link naar pastebin is slechts een maand geldig, voor het nageslacht hier een screenshot van de betreffende pagina. De ‘nickname’ coretx is een alias voor lijsttrekker Samir Allioui, een soort van psuedoniem waaronder hij op het internet bekend staat.

Invite some friends over for a nice meal, have them bring an external 1TB hard-drive each and hook them up to your Terabyte Dinner Device. Enjoy the food and the company, and when the evening ends each of you will have at least 750GB of new content, software or literature. All in crisp digital quality. And without leaving a trace that might implicate you for committing the horrendous crime of exchanging information.

At the eth0 summer event in August 2010 participants are invited to built their own TBDD, after which the first terabyte dinners may take place right there and then! Some of the more important design goals: easy to use (even your grandmother should be able to organise a terabyte dinner), using off-the-shelf components, easy to assemble, low energy consumption for terabyte picknicks in the park and a small form factor for maximum portability.

More information about the project, initiated by Revelation Space, the Hxx foundation and eth0, can be found on the revspace wiki.

If you are into embedded systems, electronics, product design, user interaction or just have a creative mind in general, please come over and join the revolution in content sharing!

When: May 29th, 2010, 14:00 hours.

Where: Revelation Space, The Hague, NL

Workshop page: TBDDWorkshop